"In the city that never sleeps, one man is still awake…Duty sits heavy with Guy Noir…"

I have been a member of the Neo Spartans for almost 8 months now and I have to say, if you have not joined a player corporation yet, you are really missing out on a great part of the game. We are a tight knit pirate corp, living in low sec and loving every minute of it.

So, how does a pirate corporation determine how successful they have become? A killboard with billions up on billions of isk destroyed? A kill count in the thousands? A reputation for our piracy that strikes fear in those who cross out path? Well, we have all these things. We are successful and we have a lot of fun. As of late, it seems that we have become victims of our success. The small low sec pocket we live in has seen a dramatic drop in traffic as of late. It’s no worry, we just go out on longer and longer roams into other low sec pockets or into 0.0.

So, we thought we were a successful pirate corp, but one thing had been missing. We had not been the target of a mercenary corporation. Well, at least, we HAD not been a target.

Noir/Duty has been contracted to “make violence upon us and do us great damage” . Yes, we have been Yarring about and shivering enough timbers to get someone to pay mercenaries to attack us. So, we are now a truly successful pirate corp, we have done enough damage to warrant the hiring of mercenaries to do someone else’s dirty work.

It’s that or Noir/Duty decided that they wanted some fun and engaged in a mutual contract to war dec us. Either way, we have grown and gotten someone’s attention.

A few days later, there were just a few of us online and seeing that they only had 8 people in system, we thought we would have a go. We stood at the “Hot Gates”, we engaged them and then saw their support log on. We were out numbered 3 to 1 and we stood and fought to the last man. We did not run and hide, we did not back down and yes, as you don’t often read in a regaling of a PvP engagement, we did die, Neo Spartans to the end.

Now, contrary to what you would normally hear about some poor soul loosing to a larger force, you will not hear about this was a ‘blob’. This fight that we lost was not a blob. It was simply a larger gang using login trap support engaging a smaller gang. It’s the mercenary way, bring bigger guns.

Since that engagement, we have had our POS put into re-enforced and successfully defended it from a Noir second attack. I say second attack as they brought a force to attack us again, but seeing that we were not outnumbered by Noir/Duty this time, they decided to withdraw rather than risk their contracts stats showing that they did not “do us great damage”.

Lame some would say. Spending the time to try to bring a POS down and then not finish the job. Well, no, it’s not lame. It’s the nature of mercenary corps. They will hit you when you are vulnerable, when you don’t have the resources to mount a proper defense. Honestly, it’s their job to go for an easy kill. It’s what they are being paid to do. You can’t be upset with them for that. We all hit our targets when we think we can win the fight, we all use the same numbers tactics against each other. We frustrate them, they frustrate us. As the saying goes, “Some days you are the pidgeon, other days you are the statue”.

Neo Spartans live for PvP, it’s what we do. I must say thank you to whoever it was who hired Noir/Duty if they were in fact hired. They have brought us some fun and challenges for us to meet. It’s not been the normal day in the life of a pirate where everyone runs and hides from a fight. It’s made us use those skills that we have not used in a while. It’s also allowed us to grow as a corporation and expand our knowledge.

Yes, knowledge. Whether you win or loose, you should be learning something new about PvP. Your knowledge of tactics, planning and execution of plans should always be growing. If you find that you are not learning something, then you are not engaging in challenging fights and it’s time to step it up a bit.

Noir/Duty, thank you for bringing the good fights. We have enjoyed ourselves.